La Jordanie renforce sa défense contre la Syrie
LE FIGARO: Inquiet de la dégradation de la situation à sa frontière nord avec la Syrie, Amman a acquis auprès de ses alliés américains douze lanceurs de missiles.

Inquiet d'une possible attaque par un régime syrien aux abois, le royaume hachémite a récemment acquis auprès de ses alliés américains douze lanceurs de missiles de type Himar, capables d'attaquer une division entière, affirme au Figaroune source militaire française au Moyen-Orient.

«Chacun des douze lance-missiles de calibre 220 millimètres est monté sur un camion de type Doge et peut tirer une vingtaine de munitions», précise cet expert, qui évalue à quelque 500 à 600 le nombre de missiles fournis à Amman lors de leur livraison, cet automne. » | Par Georges Malbrunot | vendredi 26 octobre 2012

Berlusconi’s Scandal-filled Career

Berlin Plans to Replace Historic Gas Lamps
Cost-cutting in Berlin may lead to cutting parts of the city's history. Plans are underway to replace nearly all of its historic gas street lamps. The city's politicians say they're too expensive to maintain. Al Jazeera's Nick Spicer reports from Berlin.

Hurricane Sandy Moves Up US Atlantic Coast
Category 1 system menaces large swathe of Eastern Seaboard as forecasters predict catastrophic hybrid "Frankenstorm"

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Pat Condell: Why You Can Not Vote Barack Hussein Obama For President 2012

Journeyman Pictures: Backlash - Greece

Burmese Government Accused of Failing to Stop Anti-Muslim Violence
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The Burmese government has been accused of failing to protect its religious minorities after human rights campaigners claimed that entire districts of a Muslim-inhabited coastal town were destroyed in communal violence.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch released satellite images which it said showed that more than 800 buildings and houseboats had been razed in the town of Kyaukpyu, in western Burma's Rakhine state.

It said the victims of the violence were mainly Rohingya Muslims, thousands of whom have fled the area since tensions with Burma's majority Buddhist population flared anew. Officials say that at least 67 people have been killed and 95 wounded in the past week.

Long-running tensions between the two groups first flared back in June, when accusations that a group of Muslim men were responsible for the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman led to 80 deaths and 75,000 people fleeing their homes.

While the Rakhine Buddhists claim to have been the victim of pogroms themselves, the Rohingya Muslims claim to have borne the brunt of the violence. » | Colin Freeman | Saturday, October 27, 2012

Berlusconi schwankt zwischen Auswandern und Comeback
WIENER ZEITUNG: Ex-Premier kündigte bereits an, doch weitermachen zu wollen.

Rom. Empört und verbittert reagiert Italiens Ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi auf die Verurteilung zu vier Jahren Haft wegen Steuerbetrugs. In einer ersten Stellungnahme nach der Urteilsverkündung sprach der Medienunternehmer von einem "politischen" Urteil und griff die verantwortlichen Richter scharf an. Er habe Lust, alles liegen und stehen zu lassen und auszuwandern, berichtete die römische Tageszeitung "Il Messaggero".

Doch dann machte der Ex-Premier, wie so oft, einen Schwenk. Er wolle weiterhin in der Politik bleiben, gewissermaßen aus selbstlosen Motiven: "Dieses Urteil wird Folgen haben. Ich fühle mich verpflichtet, weiterhin in der Politik zu bleiben, um die Justiz zu reformieren, damit anderen Bürgern nicht das geschieht, was ich erlebt habe", sagte Berlusconi im Interview mit seinem TV-Sender "Canale 5" am Samstag. » | Samstag, 27. Oktober 2012

"Super Storm" Sandy Heads Toward U.S. Northeast Coast
REUTERS.COM: Hurricane Sandy was downgraded on Saturday morning but remained highly menacing as it pulled away from the Bahamas, making a slow path toward the U.S. northeast coast where it threatens to become one of the worst storms in decades.

The late-season storm has been dubbed "Frankenstorm" by some weather watchers because it will combine elements of a tropical cyclone and a winter storm and is forecast to reach the U.S. coast close to Halloween.

Forecast models show it will have all the ingredients to morph into a so-called "super storm", stirring memories of the 1993 'Storm of the Century', whose impact in the United States was particularly destructive.

Governors in states along the U.S. East Coast declared emergencies on Friday, with officials urging residents to stock up on food, water and batteries. » | Kevin Gray | MIAMI | Saturday, October 27, 2012

WEATHER.COM VIDEO: Sandy: Major Impacts Expected in Northeast »

Medina: Saudis Take a Bulldozer to Islam's History

THE INDEPENDENT: Authorities are building a mosque so big it will hold 1.6m people – but are demolishing irreplaceable monuments to do it

Three of the world’s oldest mosques are about to be destroyed as Saudi Arabia embarks on a multi-billion-pound expansion of Islam’s second holiest site. Work on the Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, where the Prophet Mohamed is buried, will start once the annual Hajj pilgrimage ends next month. When complete, the development will turn the mosque into the world’s largest building, with the capacity for 1.6 million worshippers.

But concerns have been raised that the development will see key historic sites bulldozed. Anger is already growing at the kingdom’s apparent disdain for preserving the historical and archaeological heritage of the country’s holiest city, Mecca. Most of the expansion of Masjid an-Nabawi will take place to the west of the existing mosque, which holds the tombs of Islam’s founder and two of his closest companions, Abu Bakr and Umar.

Just outside the western walls of the current compound are mosques dedicated to Abu Bakr and Umar, as well as the Masjid Ghamama, built to mark the spot where the Prophet is thought to have given his first prayers for the Eid festival. The Saudis have announced no plans to preserve or move the three mosques, which have existed since the seventh century and are covered by Ottoman-era structures, or to commission archaeological digs before they are pulled down, something that has caused considerable concern among the few academics who are willing to speak out in the deeply authoritarian kingdom. » | Jerome Taylor | Friday, October 26, 2012

Al-Zawahiri Urges Muslims To Capture Westerners, Calls Obama 'Professional Liar'
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES: Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has called on the Muslims to kidnap westerners as a means to free the imprisoned jihadists and to restart the Egyptian revolution, the SITE Intelligence Group has reported.

"We are seeking, by the help of Allah, to capture others and to incite Muslims to capture the citizens of the countries that are fighting Muslims in order to release our captives," said al-Zawahiri, referring to the kidnapping of Warren Weinstein, a 71-year-old American aid worker in Pakistan, last year, Reuters reported.

Al-Zawahiri, a physician by training, urged the Egyptians to press for the law of Islam in the country and fight till the Shariah law was implemented.

"The battle isn't over, but it has started… The revolution in Egypt must continue and the Muslim Ummah must offer sacrifices until it achieves what it wants and until it snatches from the corrupt forces ... the dignity and honor of Egypt," al-Zawahiri said, according to an AFP report.

In the first part of the eleventh episode of his series, "A Message of Hope and Glad Tidings to Our People in Egypt," he lashed out at the U.S. for supporting Israel and called President Barack Obama a “professional liar.” » | Sreeja VN | Saturday, October 27 2012

Large Majority Of Muslim-Americans Support Obama In Decade-Long Shift Toward Democrats
THINK PROGRESS: The Council on American-Islamic Relationsreleased poll results this week showing that 68 percent of American Muslims support President Obama while just 7 percent support Mitt Romney (1 in 4 remain undecided). These results reflect a new reality for Republicans: American Muslims are rushing toward Democrats. In 2008, 49 percent of Muslim-Americans felt “closer” to Democrats. Now that number has shot up to 66 percent. That’s in contrast to the population as a whole, where Democratic favorability has actually gone down 11 percent. » | Hamed Aleaziz | Thursday, October 25, 2012

New Account of Hitler's Last Days Released
Newly-released files reveal that Hitler told Himmler "everyone has deceived me" in his last days in the bunker and said the "German people deserve to perish".

Newly-released diaries contain an account of the Joint Intelligence Committee's report on Hitler's final days in his bunker.

Dr Stephen Twigge, head of the Modern, Domestic, Diplomatic and Colonial team at The National Archives in Kew, west London says the dictator is portrayed as, "a rather depressed, demented, mad individual."

That assessment comes as little surprise, but the historian says the diaries give the world a new insight into Hitler's last days.

Fear and Loathing in Athens: The Rise of Golden Dawn and the Far Right

THE GUARDIAN: In austerity-ravaged Greece, neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn is on the rise. Their MPs give fascist salutes, while on the streets black-shirted vigilantes beat up immigrants. And some of their most enthusiastic supporters are in the police

You can hear it from blocks away: the deafening beat of Pogrom,Golden Dawn's favourite band, blasting out of huge speakers by a makeshift stage. "Rock for the fatherland, this is our music, we don't want parasites and foreigners on our land…" It's a warm October evening and children on bicycles are riding up and down among the young men with crew cuts, the sleeves of their black T-shirts tight over pumped-up biceps, strolling with the stiff swagger of the muscle-bound. They look relaxed, off-duty. Two of them slap a handshake: "Hey, fascist! How's it going?"

Trestle tables are stacked with Golden Dawn merchandise: black T-shirts bearing the party's name in Greek, Chrysi Avgi, the sigma shaped like the S on SS armbands; mugs with the party symbol, a Greek meander drawn to resemble a swastika; Greek flags and black lanyards, lighters and baseball caps. I lean over to talk to one woman stallholder, dressed in Golden Dawn black with thickly kohl-rimmed eyes, but as soon as she opens her mouth a man in a suit strides up: "What are you writing? Are you a journalist? Tear that page out of your notebook. No, no, you can't talk to anyone."

Tonight is the opening of the Golden Dawn office in Megara, a once prosperous farming town between Athens and Corinth. The Greek national socialist party polled more than 15% here – double the national average – in the June election, when it won 18 seats in parliament. (One was taken up by the former bassist with Pogrom, whose hits include Auschwitz and Speak Greek Or Die.)

Legitimised by democracy and by the media, Golden Dawn is opening branches in towns all over Greece and regularly coming third in national opinion polls. Its black-shirted vigilantes have been beating up immigrants for more than three years, unmolested by the police; lately they've taken to attacking Greeks they suspect of being gay or on the left. MPs participate proudly in the violence. In September, three of them led gangs of black-shirted heavies through street fairs in the towns of Rafina and Messolonghi, smashing up immigrant traders' stalls with Greek flags on thick poles. » | Maria Margaronis | Friday, October 26, 2012

Who, What, Why: What's It Like to Be a Prisoner of the Vatican?

BBC: Paolo Gabriele, Pope Benedict's former butler, begins an 18-month prison sentence today inside the Vatican walls, after being found guilty by a Vatican City court of stealing sensitive documents from the Pope's desk. What will life be like for the only prisoner inside the world's smallest sovereign state?

The Pope's former butler is being treated "leniently and justly" according to Vatican authorities, and may even benefit from a papal pardon before the end of his prison term, if he shows repentance and apologises to Pope Benedict and all the other people who work for the Holy See for the scandal he caused.

But for the moment he has exchanged his modest "grace and favour" three-bedroom apartment just inside the walls of the Vatican for a sparsely furnished detention room inside the headquarters of the Pope's private police force, the Vatican Gendarmerie.

Not only has he been sacked, but he now risks losing his home as well, situated almost next door to his former workplace, the Papal apartments on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace.

Vatican City has a railway station - with only one train a week bringing in bonded duty-free goods, a Post Office, a radio station, a pharmacy, a supermarket, a fire brigade, a five-star hotel, and one of the world's most visited museums, but it has no prison - and no dungeons. » | David Willey, BBC News, Rome | Friday, October 26, 2012

Schweiz: Tageschau – Nachrichten aus der Schweiz, aus aller Welt

Italian Court Convicts Berlusconi of Tax Fraud, Gives Him 4-years
FOX NEWS: MILAN – A court in Italy has convicted former Premier Silvio Berlusconi of tax fraud and sentenced him to four years in prison.

The conviction Friday was the 76-year-old media mogul's first in a long series of trials, but it did not mean he was going to prison right away. Cases in Italy must pass two levels of appeal before the verdicts are final.

His lawyers declined to comment immediately, but the billionaire businessman is expected to appeal. Berlusconi wasn't in the courtroom for the verdict on the case stemming from dealings in his Mediaset business empire.

A total of 11 people were on trial. Prosecutors had alleged that the defendants were behind a scheme to purchase the rights to broadcast U.S. movies on Berlusconi's private TV networks in his Mediaset empire through a series of offshore companies and had falsely declared the payments to avoid taxes.

Berlusconi's designated political heir as the head of the center-right party he leads, Angelino Alfano, blasted the verdict Friday as "incomprehensible" and said he was confident an appeals court would throw out the conviction. » | Associated Press | Friday, October 26, 2012

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Silvio Berlusconi sentenced to four years in jail: Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister, has been sentenced to four years in prison after a court in Milan convicted him of tax evasion. » | Friday, October 26, 2012

THE WASHINGTON POST: The 3 reasons Silvio Berlusconi might never see prison: » | Max Fisher | Friday, October 26, 2012

CHANNEL NEWS ASIA: Clooney absent from Berlusconi sex trial: ROME: Hollywood star George Clooney failed to appear Friday to give evidence in the trial of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on sex charges, leading the prosecutor to accuse the defence of seeking to slow down the proceedings. ¶ Clooney and his former fiancee Elisabetta Canalis have been named as defence witnesses and Clooney was due to testify Friday but did not appear. » | AFP/al | Friday, October 26, 2012

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Silvio Berlusconi four-year sentence quickly cut to one year: Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister, was sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion, only for the prison term to be reduced swiftly to one year. » | Nick Squires, Rome and Alex Spillius | Friday, October 26, 2012

Syllabus in Indonesia to Cut 'Non-essentials'
In a bid to lighten the workload of its students, the Indonesian government is mulling over a change to the primary school curricululm that would see the elimination of English, science, and social studies. Religion, the Indonesian language, and nationalism lessons, deemed essential, are set to take the place of the subjects should they be axed. Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen reports from Jakarta.

Nick Clegg Insists on Speaking Dutch at Cabinet Office Meeting
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Nick Clegg holds a meeting in London entirely in Dutch with Herman Van Rompuy, allegedly to outfox David Cameron's 'spy'.

Nick Clegg, who speaks five languages fluently, chose to conduct a recent meeting at the Cabinet Office with Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council president, entirely in Dutch.

Did the Deputy Prime Minister, whose mother is from the Netherlands, do so to outfox a Downing Street official whom David Cameron had allegedly sent to spy on their conversation?

“Nick enjoys being able to talk Dutch,” the Liberal Democrat leader's spokesman tells Mandrake. “Similarly, when he meets leaders from France or Latin America, he’ll speak French and Spanish. It’s very much appreciated when he goes. Read on and comment » | Tim Walker. Edited by Richard Eden | Thursday, October 25, 2012

Débat: Madame Jésus a-t-elle existé?
Une théologienne américaine a dévoilé un fragment de papyrus, écrit en copte et daté du IVe siècle, qui ferait allusion à la femme de Jésus. Un document pas encore authentifié. Si le Christ avait été marié, les positions des Eglises chrétiennes auraient-elles été différentes, concernant notamment la sexualité et le mariage des prêtres? Débat avec Albert Longchamp, jésuite, dir. revue Choisir, et Claire Clivaz, théologienne, prof. Nouveau Testament UNIL.